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Nigerian police are investigating the demise of a Nigerian transgender TikToker referred to as “Abuja Area Mama”.
The crushed and bruised physique of 33-year-old transgender girl was discovered alongside a freeway within the capital, Abuja, on Thursday, native media report.
Abuja Area Mama had a loyal fan base on social media, the place she posted about being transgender and her life as a intercourse employee. She by no means used her full title, referring to herself generally as Ifeanyi.
Nigeria is a deeply conservative society and individuals who step exterior the norms are sometimes focused. Last 12 months the TikToker advised of how she had been attacked and feared for her life.
Same-sex relationships are criminalised in Africa’s most-populous nation and lots of LGBTQ+ Nigerians dwell in concern.
Nigerian TikTokers who’re perceived to homosexual have additionally turn out to be the goal of homophobic abuse on-line.
In her final put up on Instagram on Wednesday, Abuja Area Mama had mentioned she was on the brink of go and see her boyfriend.
Hours later, her physique was discovered alongside Katampe – Mabushi expressway within the Banex, Wuse II space of Abuja, in what’s suspected to be a homicide incident.
A workforce of detectives visited the scene on Thursday morning and “preliminary investigations revealed that the individual was a man fully dressed in female clothing with no means of identification on him”, a police assertion mentioned.
Abuja police chief Benneth Igweh has since ordered a “thorough and discreet” investigation into the death.
Last September, the TikToker said she had been stabbed by an unidentified person in what were unclear circumstances.
On her TikTok profile, she described herself as “the number one Abuja cross-dresser and queen of the street”.
She said her posts were intended to be a reflection of her life and educate her followers.
The news of her death has sparked an outpouring of grief on social media.
Even though Nigeria’s laws guarantee freedom from discrimination and the right to private and family life, mass arrests and detention of those in the LGBTQ+ community are common – especially in northern states.
“Taking legal guidelines into your hand since you do not like one other particular person’s sexual orientation is the worst type of inhumanity,” Martins Ifijeh, a local journalist, posted on X.
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